Revisiting Joseph Smith and the Availability of the Book of Enoch

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The book known as 1 Enoch has enjoyed an unwieldy amount of influence since it was originally written in separate parts by different authors from about 200 BCE to 50 CE.^[1] Some sections of the book were written prior to the composition of the biblical book of Daniel while others were written well after it.^[2] The book influenced the thought of several authors of New Testament writings,^[3] early Jewish Rabbinic and Christian patristic sources,^[4] and some medieval sources,^[5] and then disappeared in the West around the eighth century CE.^[6] Partially preserved in Aramaic, the original language of the book, it is only known in its complete form today in Ethiopic manuscripts. It is designated 1 Enoch to distinguish it from 2 Enoch, an ancient Jewish text preserved in old Slavonic, and 3 Enoch, a text written in Hebrew centuries after both 1 and 2 Enoch.^[7]

Too often scholars have assumed that for 1 Enoch to have any influence on an English-speaking author in the modern era the entire book needed to be available to them, specifically Richard Laurence’s 1821 English translation.^[8] This essay will complicate this assumption by examining the availability of portions of 1 Enoch in English from the early eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century. This is important historical context for scholars who study the influence of 1 Enoch on William Blake (1757–1827), John Flaxman (1755–1826), Thomas Moore (1779–1852), Richard Westall (1765–1836), William Hayley (1745–1820), Lord Byron (1788–1824), and Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844), among others.

This essay will primarily contextualize  Joseph Smith’s textual work in his “Extract of the Prophecy of Enoch,” added in his “translation” of the Bible to the brief mention of Enoch in Genesis 5 that constitutes Moses 6:24–7:69 in the LDS canon. I will provide a brief historiographical survey and examine previous work on the subject and then analyze the general knowledge about 1 Enoch during the period 1715–1830 in both British and early Anglo-American history. I show that the relevant portions of 1 Enoch for Smith’s writings were far better known and broadly discussed than has previously been recognized. During this period English-speaking audiences would have been familiar with the story of the fallen angels and their marriage to human women. They understood this story to be about the separate lineages of Cain and Seth: the sons of God were Seth’s children and the daughters of women were Cain’s. Miscegenation—the marrying of people from different racial types—was assumed to be the major breach of the covenant between God and the group known as the sons of God. This ties directly to Smith’s rewriting of Genesis 1–6 in the book of Moses.

Historiography

Explaining the presence of themes and images from 1 Enoch in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has been puzzling in a variety of scholarly fields. For instance, scholars have long debated how it was that William Blake could have been familiar with the contents of 1 Enoch in his work during the first decades of the nineteenth century. In his 1978 essay, “A Jewel in an Ethiop’s Ear,” G. E. Bentley, Jr. assumed that Blake could not have known the contents of 1 Enoch until after 1821 when Laurence’s translation was published.^[9] Blake had been working on several illustrations based on passages in 1 Enoch in the years prior to his death, and produced a handful of drawings although he never finished the project. In 1994 John Beer responded to the ongoing discussion by arguing that, “There is, however, one further place of publishing which has apparently been overlooked by everyone who has looked at the problem—including even the 1821 translator, Richard Laurence.”^[10] Beer quoted an article in the February 1, 1801 issue of the Monthly Magazine printed in London titled, “Concerning the Writings and Readings of Jude.”^[11] In this short piece the anonymous author was able to discuss several non-canonical texts that the author of Jude quoted in his epistle and summarize some of the contents of 1 Enoch 1–22.^[12] The author of the essay provided translations they made based on the Latin text that Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy had previously made available in France. Therefore, according to Beer, some of the content and general substance of 1 Enoch could have been known to English-speaking audiences as early as 1801, and, most importantly, this made available the relevant section for Blake’s project.

In actuality, as Susan Matthews has shown, portions of 1 Enoch had been available in English translation since the beginning of the eighteenth century, making it possible that English readers like Blake could have had access to parts of 1 Enoch well before 1801.^[13] In his 1700 publication Spicilegium SS. Patrum, Johann Ernst Grabe published Greek fragments of parts of 1 Enoch.^[14] These were translated into English by a Mr. Lewis and published in 1715 in his book The History of the Seventy-Two Interpreters in a section titled “The History of the Angels, and their Gallantry with the Daughters of Men.”^[15] As I will show further below, these three texts offer only a small glimpse to what was available about 1 Enoch in eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century English reading circles. There were far more sources published in both Britain and America at that time that support the idea that Blake and others could have had access to at least parts of 1 Enoch when they produced their art and writings.

Similar to Blake studies, scholars in Mormon studies have long assumed that Joseph Smith Jr. could not have been aware of 1 Enoch because Laurence’s translation was only made available in 1821 and Smith began working on his revision of Genesis in the latter half of 1830. Hugh Nibley first popularized this issue in a series of articles published in the LDS Church’s periodical Ensign from October 1975 to August 1977.^[16] In the series Nibley made connections between the Enochic text Smith added to the King James Version of Genesis 5 and ancient Jewish and Christian pseudepigrapha.^[17] The overarching assumption throughout Nibley’s essays was that if you could show that the concepts, language, and motifs in the “Extract of the Prophecy of Enoch” could also be found in ancient Jewish and Christian sources, then there was no other way to describe Smith’s additions to Genesis 5 than as divinely inspired. How could he, a poor, uneducated farm boy,^[18] have come to know about these ancient traditions except through revelation?^[19]

It became more difficult for scholars to passively accept Nibley’s prior conclusions with the publication in 1987 of D. Michael Quinn’s Early Mormonism and the Magic World View,^[20] and even more so with the expanded and revised edition of the book in 1998.^[21] In the second edition, Quinn added fourteen pages to the first part of chapter 6, “Mormon Scriptures, the Magic World View, and Rural New York’s Intellectual Life.” Quinn’s additional material explored the potential direct or indirect availability of ideas and documents about the biblical figure of Enoch to Smith during 1830 and early 1831 while he revised the first six chapters of Genesis.

In a lengthy section Quinn responded directly to several of Nibley’s claims. Nibley had commented at length on the unlikelihood of Smith having access to a copy of Richard Laurence’s English translation of 1 Enoch. Because the book was only printed in England, and so recently, Nibley argued that it was unlikely if not impossible for Smith to have had access to the English translation. In responding to Nibley’s previous work Quinn noted that Laurence’s Book of Enoch had another printing in 1828. Nibley did not know this at the time of writing his article, because even the British Museum Library’s published catalog mentioned no imprint between 1821 and the 1833 “Second edition, corrected and enlarged.” However, published five years after Nibley’s article, the more comprehensive National Union Catalog of Pre-1956 Imprints showed that the 1833 edition actually “corrected and enlarged” an 1828 reprinting of Laurence’s Enoch translation. Only one copy of this 1828 imprint now survives, Quinn noted, and it is in the New York Public Library according to his source.^[22]

Quinn made what appeared to be a significant discovery. The question of the availability of Laurence’s translation of 1 Enoch had moved from the possibility of only one printing being available to Smith to two printings, the 1821 and 1828. Besides these printings, Quinn made it clear in the revised chapter that Nibley downplayed the interest in 1 Enoch during this period. There were several volumes, some available in print in Smith’s area, that not only mentioned Laurence’s new translation, but there was also a commentary on the Bible, “which discussed Laurence’s Book of Enoch.”^[23]

While he may not have investigated the sources that Quinn cited in his book, Salvatore Cirillo depended heavily on Quinn in his master’s thesis, completed in 2010 at Durham University.^[24] Cirillo’s thesis has been cited in several articles that explore the availability of Laurence’s Book of Enoch to Smith, but it has not always been taken very seriously.^[25] In a section entitled “Access to Materials,” Cirillo reviewed Nibley’s book in ways similar to Quinn. In response to Nibley’s argument that 1 Enoch was unknown in America up to the time Smith created the “Extract of the Prophecy of Enoch,” Cirillo quoted Quinn’s statement that there was an 1828 printing of Laurence’s Book of Enoch. According to Cirillo, Quinn wrote that “Laurence’s 1821 translation had another printing in 1828 just in America.”^[26] Quinn did not actually note that this publication was “in America.”^[27] Instead, as noted above, Quinn wrote, “Laurence’s Book of Enoch had another printing in 1828.” In paraphrasing Quinn’s passage, Cirillo misquoted him. He replaced “Book of Enoch” with “1821 translation” and added “just in America” at the end. Besides the obvious issues of misquotation, there is also the problem of locating this printing.

In the relevant sections of the National Union Catalog quoted by Quinn, in volumes 55 and 318, information is provided about the publication of the Book of Enoch and the publications of Richard Laurence, respectively. Quinn pointed to the following entry in volume 55, page 313:

Bible. O. T. Apocryphal books. 1 Enoch. English. 1828. Laurence.
The book of Enoch the prophet, an apocryphal production supposed to have been lost for ages, but discovered at the close of the last century in Abyssinia. Oxford. 1828. 8°
NBi 0041105 NN

The final line is the catalog’s assigned number for this printing and indication that it is only found in the New York Public Library (NN). It is not clear how exactly Cirillo got the idea that the 1828 printing listed here was printed in America; the catalog states that it was published in Oxford. There is also no note, as Quinn suggests, that the second edition printed in 1833 was a corrected and enlarged version of the 1828. All that the entry for that printing states is, “2d ed., cor. and enl.”

One might expect to be able to locate this copy in the New York Public Library, but it does not exist. The Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division does not have any record of ever having an 1828 printing of Laurence’s Book of Enoch.^[28]Nor is it the case that the New York Public Library had a copy of an 1828 printing of the Book of Enoch and then later removed it from their holdings. A catalog published in 1928 by the Library specifically listed their holdings in Ethiopic and Amharic up to that year.^[29] In this catalog there are two entries on page 42 about the Book of Enoch that were printed in 1838: one in Ethiopic and the other in English.^[30] The National Union Catalog only lists one version of the 1838, the English edition. It is possible that this second Ethiopic edition of Laurence’s Book of Enoch was mistakenly marked as the 1828 entry in the National Union Catalog because there is no evidence that an 1828 printing ever existed outside of the National Union Catalog itself. Unfortunately, Quinn’s discovery only leads to a dead end.

Jed Woodworth followed Nibley’s lead during a summer seminar at Brigham Young University by attempting to situate Smith’s “Extract of the Prophecy of Enoch” with specific themes in 1 Enoch, mainly by comparing and contrasting the depiction of God in the two texts.^[31] Later, while working on his biography of Smith, Richard Bushman relied on Woodworth’s paper to provide historical background for his comments on Smith’s “Extract.”^[32] This led Bushman to the inaccurate claim that up to 1830 “modern biblical commentators on Enoch had been restricted to the five verses in Genesis and the three in the New Testament that speak of Enoch’s genealogy, prophecy of judgment, and ascent into heaven without dying.”^[33] Bushman was aware of Quinn’s work on the issue and rejected the idea that Smith might have had access to a copy of Laurence’s Book of Enoch, assuming that Smith could only have known the contents of the book if he had a complete copy.^[34]

This assessment, however, is incorrect, and contemporary scholars of Mormonism must revise their understandings of the place of Enochic literature in Europe and America prior to Smith’s revision of the Bible in 1830 according to new research. The new evidence shows that biblical scholars writing in English and other European languages had access to multiple extra-biblical sources on Enoch since at least the medieval period, and in 1601 Isaac Casaubon expanded these sources when he copied extracts from the Greek text of 1 Enoch in the Chronography of George Syncellus.^[35] These extracts were then used and made popular by scholars like Joseph Scaliger the next year.^[36] Besides this, medieval and Renaissance scholars long had access to references to 1 Enoch in multiple sources.^[37] In the next section I will analyze the extent to which I have been able to locate the availability of information on 1 Enoch in English sources printed in Britain and the United States in the century leading up to the 1820s.

The Availability of Enoch in English, 1715–1830^[38]

There are numerous English translations, summaries, and media reports about the contents of 1 Enoch printed between 1715 and 1830. English authors had much more of 1 Enoch available to them than just the reference in Jude or a few scattered references in patristic literature. In 1715 Mr. Lewis published an English translation of portions of 1 Enoch taken from the Greek provided in Dr. Grabe’s Spicilegium SS. Patrum,^[39] including twenty pages from portions of 1 Enoch 1–22. In 1712, just before Lewis’s publication was in print, an English translation of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs was printed in America,^[40]and this text explicitly cites 1 Enoch and discusses many of its themes. It was reprinted again in America soon after and became a popular source for scholarly treatments of world history at the time.^[41] Johann Fabricius published his famous Codex pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti in 1713. Fabricius was the first to gather together ancient Jewish and Christian texts under the term pseudepigrapha, which he coined.^[42] There is a reason he chose such a pejorative name (“false writings”) for his collection.

Several of Fabricius’s contemporaries actually believed that the texts were authentic and could be verified as genuine ancient scripture worthy of inclusion in the Christian canon. The most vocal of these after Fabricius’s initial publication was William Whiston, successor of Isaac Newton as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Besides translating Flavius Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, Whiston compiled many of the texts Fabricius labeled pseudepigrapha, translated them into English, and published them in 1727 as A Collection of Authentick Records Belonging to the Old and New Testament.^[43] His text included ten pages of English translation of 1 Enoch and an extended argument in fourteen pages defending the authenticity of the book. The work published by Scaliger, Fabricius, and Whiston would make English audiences for the next hundred years aware that the “prophecy of Enoch,” quoted by the author of the epistle of Jude, was at least partially accessible to them and their contemporaries.

In 1732 John Chapman, a priest of the University of Cambridge, alluded to 1 Enoch in his book Remarks on a Book Intitled, Christianity as old as the Creation as “an antient Apocryphal Book of Enoch, part of which is still preserv’d, giving a large account of the Angels, their Conduct, and Punishment.” Pointing his readers even further to that book he suggested that if they were interested in “see[ing] a fuller account of this Story” to “consult Syncellus, Joseph Scaliger, Heidegger, and Fabricius,” and he provided references to each of the previous publications.^[44]

In 1739 the abbé Antoine Banier published The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients.^[45] In this volume Banier described how an interpretation based on the Septuagint of Genesis 6 developed in antiquity wherein giants were the offspring of angels and the daughters of men. He noted how the Septuagint, Philo, Josephus, Justin, Clement of Alexandria, and even rabbis and Muslims had adopted it.^[46] Next, he described how 1 Enoch contributed to the widespread influence of this idea, and that it was a very ancient book. Although a “heretical” story, Banier provided a brief account of the narrative of the fallen angels as found in 1 Enoch. His summary incorporates the passages of the book that had recently been published in English by Mr. Lewis and William Whiston.^[47]

In 1747 a group of British authors published a multi-volume set titled An Universal History, from the Earliest Account of Time.^[48] In the first volume one of the compilers wrote about the history of the world from the Creation to the Flood and noted that copies of 1 Enoch were then believed to be in Ethiopia and that a Mr. Peiresc had “used his utmost endeavours to get it from thence, but to no purpose.” In the body of his commentary on the history of the world, the compiler noted “That Enoch was a prophet, and that some prophecy of his was preserved, either in writing, or by tradition . . . appears from the passage quoted thence by St. Jude. However, the piece under the title of The Scripture of Prophecy of Enoch, of which we have some fragments extant (B), is allowed to be a manifest forgery; though several of the fathers had a better opinion of it than it deserves.”^[49] In note B the author refers the reader to the publication of these fragments of 1 Enoch by Joseph Scaliger and in J. Goar’s edition of George Syncellus’s Chronography.^[50]

In 1752 John Jackson attempted to reconcile all of ancient world history in his Chronological Antiquities by closely examining the major sources he had access to, including the Bible and numerous other texts from antiquity. In the first volume he discussed 1 Enoch, including Syncellus’s “Extracts” of the book, and noted how it was “frequently cited” in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine.^[51] He argued, with the eleventh-century author George Kedrenos, that the descendants of Seth occupied an area in the upper hills around Eden and the children of Cain in the lower country. Around the year of the world 1000 Seth’s “sons of God” fell in love with some of Cain’s “daughters of men.” This led to a “lawless tyranny” in Babylon and the ancient Near East,^[52] tyrannical because it was not a patriarchal government. Seth’s descendants apostatized and “Injustice, Violence, and Wars ensued.”^[53] Accordingly, righteous Enoch preached to them in an attempt to save them from wickedness, but their disdain for his preaching was too intense and they turned to violence. Enoch was translated to heaven before they could harm him.

In 1768 an article was published in The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure that discussed “Whether the Patriarchs, before the Flood, had delivered their Knowledge by Tradition? and, Whether Enoch wrote before that Period?”^[54] In this essay the anonymous author summarizes the references to 1 Enoch in the patristic literature and responds to the ongoing debate about whether Enoch actually wrote a book, handed down traditions that were later written into a book, or even possibly existed as oral tradition up to the time of the writing of Jude. The author believed that Enoch had written a book and summarized some of the contents of 1 Enoch then known.

Readers across the British American colonies throughout December 1773 would open their newspapers to read about how James Bruce had gifted one of his three manuscript copies of the Ethiopic 1 Enoch to the king of France. Readers in Britain were made aware in September.^[55] On December 1 and in the days following, audiences throughout Pennsylvania would have learned in the Pennsylvania Gazette that “Letters from Paris mention, that the Sieur Guys, of the Academy at Marseilles, Secretary to the French King, has had the honour to present to his Majesty, on the part of the Chevalier James Bruce, a celebrated English Traveller, with whom he corresponded, an Abyssinian manuscript, which contains the Prophecy of Enoch. His Majesty has ordered that this manuscript, of which St. Jerome makes mention, and which the late Sieur Colbert had searched for in vain, shall be deposited in his Library.”^[56] The same text was printed in the Maryland Gazette on December 9,^[57] and on December 16 it was printed in the Virginia Gazette and the Rind’s Virginia Gazette.^[58] Bruce would publish his Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in 1790 throughout Great Britain,^[59] and the same year American citizens would be treated to an abridged version of the publication printed in New York.^[60] Both versions describe Bruce’s discovery of 1 Enoch.

In 1782 the third edition of William Alexander’s The History of Women was published in London.^[61] Alexander’s history began with the antediluvian women of the Bible. He described how soon after Cain and his family were exiled following the death of Abel it did not take long for the group “to abandon themselves to every species of wickedness.” They were then known as the Daughters of Men because of their actions, and Seth’s righteous line was called the “Sons and Daughters of God.”^[62] Seth’s descendants lived on a hill near Eden and Cain’s down in the valley. After a time, one hundred and twenty of Seth’s sons heard music at the bottom of the hill and decided to investigate, and, after seeing beautiful naked women dancing, they were tempted to return from time to time and eventually decided to intermarry with Cain’s line.

According to Alexander, this story “gave birth to an opinion, that by the Sons of God were meant Angels,” and that this version of the story was based on “a forgery, called the Prophecy of Enoch.”^[63] In a lengthy footnote Alexander provided a summary of the first part of 1 Enoch that by that time was common knowledge. The guardian angels were enamored by the human women they watched over and made a secret oath to go together and marry the women that they would choose. Their offspring became giants who eventually began to eat humans, which caused the human cries to go up to God. In time, God sent four archangels down to bind and imprison the angels in the earth and to destroy the giants. This wickedness led to the Flood.^[64]

By 1783 enough of 1 Enoch was available to English readers that the author Samuel Hoole (1757–1839) wrote a lengthy poem based on the angel Azazel of 1 Enoch.^[65] At the beginning of the original publication a three-page “Advertisement” was added to provide context for the readers of the poem, since “many Readers may be unacquainted with Azäel, the chief Agent in the machinery of the . . . Poem.” According to the author of the advertisement, “It was supposed by Josephus, Philo Judæus, and several others, that Angels, before the flood, were enamoured of women; but this opinion was chiefly propagated by a forgery entitled The Prophecy of Enoch.”^[66]

Further, the “watching angels, fell in love with [the daughters of men], and proposed to one another, that they should go down, and attach themselves to the daughters of Eve.” The author of the advertisement knew the names of several of these angels and provided enough context for the reader of the poem to be familiar with the contents of most of the Book of Watchers, or 1 Enoch 1–36. Hoole’s poem shows a deep awareness of the contents of 1 Enoch and portrays the uneasiness of the relationships between the fallen angels and their human wives.

A shift in individual opinion about the story of the fallen angels and the daughters of men is found in William Hayley’s 1786 publication A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Essay on Old Maids.^[67] After first attacking and dismissing the story, Hayley reverts his position and states that “I was grossly mistaken in my conjectural account of antediluvian virginity,” and that a new discovery made by a renowned traveling friend “destroys my hypothesis.”^[68] Bruce, Hayley’s friend, had written him a letter from Spain explaining the discovery and how he could “clearly prove that the fragment . . . must have proceeded from the pen of Enoch himself . . . and that he can demonstrate, by unanswerable arguments, that this fragment was contained among those very writings of Enoch which the pious Tertullian declared he had perused.”^[69] Although much of what Hayley wrote about this story in his Essay is disconnected from the reality of Bruce’s discovery,^[70] it does offer another example of the widespread knowledge about what Bruce had found.

By 1797 the Encyclopædia Britannica included an entry on Enoch that listed contemporary approaches to explaining the relationship between Jude 14–15 and 1 Enoch. According to the editors, “The question is, whether the apostle took this passage out of any particular book written by Enoch, which might be extant in the first ages of the church? whether he received it by tradition? or lastly, by some particular revelation?”^[71] After describing some of the ancient Christian patristic commentary on 1 Enoch, the editors turn to Scaliger and then Greek and rabbinic traditions. These three options for interpreting the relationship between the epistle of Jude and 1 Enoch remained normative until at least 1830.

Although many British and American publications had already previously engaged extensively with 1 Enoch up to the year 1800, more direct analyses on the text began to appear in earnest in 1801. In the February 1801 issue of the Monthly Magazine; or, British Register, an anonymous author wrote “Concerning the Writings and Readings of Jude.”^[72] The author provided a detailed history that engaged with several ancient pseudepigrapha, including Fourth Ezra, the Assumption of Moses, and 1 Enoch.

1 Enoch received special attention, and the author described seventeenth-century failed attempts to discover a full copy of the book in Ethiopia until the discovery made by Bruce. Since Bruce left a copy of 1 Enoch in Paris, another one in London, and kept one in his own possession, it was no wonder that scholars would be interested in seeing these copies for themselves. The author of the essay provides an English translation of “extracts” from 1 Enoch that are designated in the modern scholarly chapter and verse system as 1 Enoch 1:1–2:3; 6:1–13:10; 14:8–15:11; 22:5–7; and 32:1–6, which he made based on the Latin translation of C. G. Woide. Woide had himself traveled to Paris to make a copy of the manuscript of 1 Enoch Bruce had deposited there.^[73]That year, 1801, the Monthly Magazine also featured two more essays that either mentioned or directly commented on 1 Enoch, one published in March and the other in May.^[74]

Not long after this publication in 1801 parts of 1 Enoch were again translated into English and published to a broad audience, this time in both Britain and America. In January 1806 the Orthodox Churchman’s Magazine and Review published an essay on the “Apocryphal Book of Enoch” by an anonymous author only identifying himself as “W.”^[75] The author begins by assuming that all of the journal’s readers are familiar with the passage in Jude that references a prophecy of Enoch and how the Ethiopians have long had this prophecy in their canon in 1 Enoch. The author notes the failed attempts in the seventeenth century to obtain a copy of the Ethiopian text and the successful recovery by Bruce of his manuscripts.

This author likewise mentions Dr. Woide’s travel and copying of the manuscript of 1 Enoch in Paris, and how the source for his English translation is the French scholar M. de Sacy, who “has published some extracts of this book.”^[76] The bulk of the essay is a fresh English translation of 1 Enoch, and the contents included are slightly different from that found in the 1801 publication. W. translated 1 Enoch 1:1–9; 6:1–8:4; 22:5–7; and 32:1–6 and made a few errors in the identification of chapter headings. The article was reprinted in the February 1808 issue of the Churchman’s Magazine in New York.^[77]

Several more references to 1 Enoch were made in 1801,^[78] 1806,^[79] 1809,^[80] 1810,^[81] 1811,^[82] and 1813^[83] in both Britain and America. In 1812 1 Enoch was mentioned in several entries in Charles Taylor’s edition of Calmet’s Great Dictionary of the Holy Bible.^[84] Under the entry for “Angel,” the editor of the dictionary assumed the readers were aware of 1 Enoch when they noted, “it is true, we find many angels called by their names in the book of Enoch; but that is of no authority.” Later, under the entry on “Demon,” the editor noted that “The apocryphal book of Enoch, and some passages of the LXX . . . misled several of the ancient fathers, to assert that angels and demons had certain subtile bodies, and particular passions which consist only with material substance.” They went on to argue that angels are immaterial and that those angels who “kept not their first estate” were sent directly from heaven to hell without ever having physical forms. Under the second entry on “Enoch” the editor noted the quotation of 1 Enoch in Jude 14–15 and is the exact same as the text found in the 1797 printing of the Encyclopædia Britannica. The editor then went on to describe different religious and geographical traditions about the character Enoch. Finally, under the entry on “Jude” the editor went away from the opinion in the entry on “Enoch” and suggested that Jude might have understood what was inspired within 1 Enoch and what was not.

In 1815 Robert Mayo borrowed material from Banier’s 1739 The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients to describe the fallen angels and 1 Enoch.^[85] That same year T. Bensley printed The Works of Nathaniel Lardner in London and the first volume included Lardner’s Credibility of the Gospel History. He looked closely at the writings of various early Christians in order to examine what books of the Bible were quoted as authoritative in early Christianity. In the section on Tertullian he spent a significant amount of time on the epistle of Jude and its quotation of 1 Enoch. He noted that the book was also quoted in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and was dependent on William Whiston’s 1727 publication of these texts.^[86] He later noted that Origen quoted 1 Enoch as scripture, but also that Origen stated that the early church as he knew it did not view 1 Enoch “as divine.”^[87]

The eminent and well-known commentator on the Bible^[88] Adam Clarke mentioned 1 Enoch several times in the final volume of his commentary on the New Testament.^[89] First, he mentioned the book in the preface to 2 John among other non-canonical writings that early Christians had cited. Alluding to 1 Enoch and others, Clarke wrote, “some . . . are come down to the present time, but are convicted of forgery by the sentiment, the style, and the doctrine.”^[90] In his preface to Jude he quoted heavily from the work of Johann David Michaelis, an eighteenth-century biblical scholar, to explain how it was unclear whether or not Enoch had written a book and if he was actually a prophet.^[91] In any case, in his commentary on Jude 14–15 Clarke noted that 1 Enoch “is still extant among the Abyssinians.”^[92]

More announcements about 1 Enoch were made in both America and Britain. The Republican Compiler announced on November 29, 1820 that the renowned biblical scholar Wilhelm Gesenius was working on a translation of 1 Enoch from “the Abyssinian language.”^[93] Only a few months later the Maryland Gazette announced on July 26, 1821 the publication of Laurence’s translation,^[94] and the next year started to see book-length responses to 1 Enoch. John Overton’s Inquiry into the Truth and Use of the Book of Enoch explicitly responded to Laurence’s work and built upon it by examining how nineteenth-century Christian scholars might appropriate aspects of the Book of Enoch into their understanding of early Judaism and Christianity.^[95] Ultimately Overton found the Book of Enoch to be useful and informative in dozens of ways and recommended that his readers form their own opinions of the book by using their own judgment.

In 1822 several British newspapers announced the coming publication of Thomas Moore’s 1823 The Loves of the Angelsand its literary dependence on the Book of Enoch.^[96] In 1823 Thomas Tomkinson’s grandson published in Britain his predecessor’s late-seventeenth-century book A Practical Discourse, Upon the Epistle, by Jude.^[97] In it Tomkinson (1631–1710) mentioned the contemporary seventeenth-century approaches to understanding what it was that Jude 14–15 was quoting—whether it was a book, a tradition, or a revelation—and used the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs to argue that the biblical patriarchs had a book of Enoch since they clearly quoted from one in the Testaments. That same year the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazinepublished an excerpt of the first couple chapters from Laurence’s Book of Enoch.^[98]

The year 1825 witnessed an explosion of popular and scholarly publications that either discussed or were dependent on 1 Enoch. The Works of the Right Hon. Lord Byron were published in Philadelphia, and included in volume five of that collection was Byron’s “Heaven and Earth, A Mystery.”^[99] Byron explicitly referenced 1 Enoch, noted that it was preserved by the Ethiopians, that angels and humans could not intermarry because mortals “are sent Upon the earth to toil and die; and they [angels] Are made to minister on high.”^[100] He also noted, agreeing with the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century consensus, that Genesis 6 was about Cain’s and Seth’s lines intermarrying.

An article was printed that year in the Christian Observer that, although brief, engaged with much of the contemporary knowledge about 1 Enoch.^[101] The book was quoted by Jude and several early Christians but then lost, partially rediscovered by Joseph Scaliger in George Syncellus’s Chronography. Some people believed 1 Enoch was a forgery based on Jude, some seventeenth-century scholars argued it could be a Greek translation of a Hebrew or Aramaic original, and Ludolph failed in his attempts to discover it and it was left to Bruce to make the discovery. Laurence translated and published Bruce’s text, and the anonymous author ended the essay by providing a summary of the contents of the Book of Enoch.

That same year Thomas Hartwell Horne’s An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures was published in Philadelphia,^[102] and it incorporated much of the same content as the previously discussed essay except that Horne argued that 1 Enoch was a second-century CE forgery and that the author of 1 Enoch was dependent on the book of Daniel for style and other aspects of their new composition.

Continuing in 1825, James Sabine responded to a book by Walter Balfour in a series of lectures.^[103] Both theologians were focused on explaining hell and the end of the world and disagreed about whether or not 1 Enoch could be helpful in understanding early Jewish and Christian ideas about these topics. Sabine argued that Enoch and Noah prophesied about impending retribution on the wicked and the righteous, and Enoch particularly prophesied about destruction.^[104] Sabine argued that whether or not the current Book of Enoch, which he implied both he and Balfour had copies of in America but that Balfour had “scarcely glanced” at, was exactly the same as the book that Jude quoted or had been corrupted. For Sabine, what mattered was that the book represents early Jewish thought on Sheol and retribution.^[105] In his response to Sabine, Walter Balfour was not interested just in ancient Jewish interpretation but whether or not the writers of apocryphal texts had been divinely inspired or if their ideas had support in the Bible.^[106] It is significant that two authors engaged in a public debate in Boston in 1825 both had access to the full text of 1 Enoch.

In 1826 S. S. Schmucker argued that 1 Enoch was a forgery based on Jude 6 and 14–15 and that since the story of the fallen angels had nothing to do with Enoch in the Bible, its forger took the idea for the book from Jude 6.^[107] A similar idea about 1 Enoch also influenced Archibald Alexander’s The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained. Alexander noted in his book that in the past the canonicity of the epistle of Jude had been challenged because of its quotation of a few apocryphal sources, especially 1 Enoch. He denied that this makes any difference for Jude’s authority because Jude does not say he quoted any book from Enoch, and even if he did, Paul quoted from pagan authors all the time without imputing any canonical status to them.^[108]

In 1826 two articles on the Book of Enoch were published in the Classical Journal in Britain.^[109] The anonymous “Remarks on Ancient Chronology” was hopeful that the new translation of 1 Enoch, presumably Laurence’s translation, would help to explain the antediluvian history of the Bible and was aware of the fragments that were available prior to the printing of Laurence’s book.^[110] The second essay explicitly cited Laurence’s translation and found no reason to agree with Laurence that Enoch did not author the book himself.^[111] Instead, he relied on Jackson’s 1752 Chronological Antiquities to argue against Laurence on several points, believing that 1 Enoch was written during the times of the patriarchs.

In July 1827 the National Gazette, published in Philadelphia, reprinted an announcement of the sale of Bruce’s personal library due to his recent passing. “It includes the Book of Enoch,” stated the editorial, “which was first brought into Europe by Mr. Bruce. The three copies of it originally belonging to him (one of which is in Paris, and the other at Oxford), are all that are known to exist of it on our continent.”^[112] Back in Britain a book-length investigation into 1 Enoch by J. M. Butt was published.^[113] Butt argued that the book quoted by Jude was in fact 1 Enoch, since that was the common assumption in early Christianity by all those who had the book. He then argued from internal and external evidence that it was authored sometime during the reign of Herod.^[114]He also explored dozens of other questions related to 1 Enoch and possible reasons why the book was denied entrance into the canon in early Christianity.^[115]

That same year John Oxlee published letters he had written to Richard Laurence about his recent publications on apocryphal texts.^[116] Oxlee argued against the then common argument that Jude did not necessarily view 1 Enoch as an inspired text similar to how Paul quoted Menander and others without viewing their works as divine. Oxlee stated that Jude does not reference 1 Enoch as some heathen poet but a significant Hebrew patriarch. Similar to how the author of Matthew quoted single verses from the eminent Hebrew prophet Isaiah, it would not be logical to argue that Matthew only found those specific verses inspired but not the whole book.^[117] Oxlee agreed with some other commentators that the book was written sometime between the Babylonian exile and the first century CE.^[118] By the late 1820s many commentators were already advancing conclusions about 1 Enoch that would become standard academic approaches to the text by the twentieth century.

There were more references in English literature to 1 Enoch in 1828^[119] and 1829,^[120] and in 1830 there were several significant publications. One briefly mentioned 1 Enoch to observe that it was “of too little value to be preserved,”^[121] and another that Enoch was the first astrologer, Abraham a celebrated magician of Chaldea, having inherited “knowledge of the heavenly bodies” from Enoch, and how 1 Enoch was one among at least a couple of other writings from the patriarchs that were lost.^[122] This adds a potentially new way of understanding why Joseph Smith Jr., as well as other early American authors, would focus on expanding the biblical stories of Enoch, Abraham, and the patriarchs.

In July 1829 a review article on Laurence’s, Oxlee’s, and Butt’s books was published in the British journal the Christian Observer.^[123] The next February the National Gazette announced the contents of that month’s publication in the Christian Observer’s American counterpart, the Religious Magazine.^[124] This single article distilled into one place all of the major scholarship on 1 Enoch up to that point. The author himself believed strongly that the book was written in the second century CE, but he noted that other scholars believed it was written sometime between the Babylonian exile and the first century CE. He discussed all of the major early Christians who commented on 1 Enoch, its loss in late antiquity, the belief by the seventeenth century that it was in Ethiopia and the failure of Peiresc and others to locate a copy, and the eventual discovery by Bruce.

The author described the history from Bruce to Laurence and the various efforts to get the text into wider circulation by de Sacy and Gesenius until Laurence’s successful publication. He described how scholarly approaches to the complicated compositional history of 1 Enoch had already become sophisticated by the early nineteenth century. First Enoch was not just one single book but multiple books that had been brought together into one. He took issue with some of the textual emendations that Laurence made throughout his version of the book and then proceeded to describe in detail the contents of the different books scholars at the time identified had been edited together to form 1 Enoch. In all there were nine separate and distinct books. The author then promised to look at the dating of 1 Enoch closer in a future publication.^[125]

Conclusion

This paper has highlighted the fact that, contrary to previous treatment of the subject, interest in 1 Enoch did not die down during the period between Bruce’s discovery of the book to 1800, or from then until Laurence’s translation of the full text of 1 Enoch in 1821. In fact, interest continued to steadily grow, with multiple independent English translations of Syncellus’s excerpt of the book becoming available in print up to about 1800. Much of that literature was reprinted in the early United States within only a few years, and then in the 1820s there was an explosion of interest in the book in both Britain and the United States, leading up to Joseph Smith’s work in the latter half of 1830. It is fitting that Smith would focus on the character of Enoch for an expansive retelling of Genesis since from 1825 onward so much attention was paid to 1 Enoch in both Britain and the United States.

The documents analyzed in this paper also show that it was possible for a general English-speaking audience to have access to at least the general story found in the Book of Watchers from multiple sources, and those suggest that there was a robust shared tradition about the lost book of Enoch. This tradition, which would have been both textual and oral, dealt with fallen angels, secret oaths by the angels (or Seth’s children) to go against God’s will, a vision Enoch had of all of history from the Creation to the future destruction of the world, the idea that Enoch was part of an early tradition of scribes and scribal culture, that he or God had to fend off wicked enemies who would not accept the gospel, and that the book was a second-century CE forgery based on the epistle of Jude.

Of utmost importance in analyzing these printed texts is that scholars today recognize that these publications do not represent all of what was available in print during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the transatlantic book trade, nor do they represent fully the conversations that English speakers were having about Enoch in both Britain and the United States. We do not have direct access to the conversations that Protestants would have had on a day-to-day or a week-to-week basis about biblical subjects that they found important, so we must rely on the fragmentary historical record that remains. This paper has only analyzed a fraction of what would have been available in print, and future work should consider British and early Anglo-American manuscript sources to see how the book of Enoch was discussed and, in the case of revivals and weekly sermons, performed in British and early American contexts.^[126]

Regarding the discussions in Mormon studies and other literary sub-fields related to contemporaries of Smith, the availability of ideas about 1 Enoch and some of the actual content were far more complicated than has usually been assumed in past scholarship. More recent work in Blake studies has highlighted the fact that Blake did not need to rely solely on Laurence’s 1821 Book of Enoch in order to perform his work, and it would be advisable for Mormon studies to begin a shift toward recognizing the same in early Mormon history.

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. Please note that there may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

^[1] James C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 16 (Washington, DC: The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1984). Throughout this essay I will refer to the full text of this book as 1 Enoch when generally referring to the historical book and the Book of Enoch when referring to Richard Laurence’s 1821 publication of the text.

^[2] George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 37–82 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 58–59.

^[3] R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, Volume II: Pseudepigrapha (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 180–81; and Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Gabriele Boccaccini, eds., Enoch and the Synoptic Gospels: Reminiscences, Allusions, Intertextuality, Early Judaism and Its Literature 44 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016).

^[4] Annette Yoshiko Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 122–59.

^[5] Frederick M. Biggs, Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: The Apocrypha, Instrumenta Anglistica Mediaevalia 1 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007), 8–10.

^[6] E. Isaac, “1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, edited by James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983), 8.

^[7] See F. I. Andersen, “2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 91–221; and P. Alexander, “3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 223–315.

^[8] Richard Laurence, The Book of Enoch The Prophet: An Apocryphal Production, Supposed to Have Been Lost for Ages; but Discovered at the Close of the Last Century in Abyssinia; Now First Translated from an Ethiopic MS. in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: At the University Press for the Author, 1821).

^[9] G. E. Bentley, Jr., “A Jewel in an Ethiop’s Ear,” in Blake in His Time, edited by Robert N. Essick and Donald Pearce (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 230. See also Susan Matthews, Blake, Sexuality and Bourgeois Politeness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 228, n. 47.

^[10] John Beer, “Blake’s Changing View of History: The Impact of the Book of Enoch,” in Historicizing Blake, edited by Steve Clark and David Worrall (Houndmills, UK: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 167.

^[11] Anonymous, “For the Monthly Magazine. Concerning the Writings and Readings of Jude,” Monthly Magazine 11, no. 1, Feb. 1, 1801, 18–23.

^[12] There are 108 chapters today in 1 Enoch. The modern chapter and verse system was set by R. H. Charles in his work on 1 Enoch. See R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, 163–281.

^[13] Susan Matthews, “Blake, Hayley and the History of Sexuality,” in Blake, Nation and Empire, edited by Steve Clark and David Worrall (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 93.

^[14] Joannes Ernestus Grabius, Spicilegium SS. Patrum ut et Haereticorum, Seculi poft Chriftum natum I. II. & III. (Editio Secunda; Oxoniae: E Theatro Sheldonaiano, 1700).

^[15] Mr. Lewis, The History of the Seventy-two Interpreters–to which is added, the History of the Angels, and their Gallantry with the Daughters of Men, written by Enoch the Patriarch. Published in Greek by Dr. Grabe, made English by Mr. Lewis (London, 1715), 175–96. See also Adam Clarke, An Account of the English Translations of all the Greek and Roman Classics, and Ecclesiastical Writers (London: Printed for W. Baynes, 1806), 16.

^[16] Nibley published his work on 1 Enoch in thirteen parts in the Ensign. All of them were brought together in Hugh Nibley, Enoch the Prophet, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, vol. 2 (Provo: Deseret Book and Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1986).

^[17] For more on the pseudepigrapha see Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, xxi–xxxiv; and George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah: A Historical and Literary Introduction, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005).

^[18] Nibley, Enoch the Prophet, 6, 112–13. On this issue see Colby Townsend, “Rewriting Eden with the Book of Mormon: Joseph Smith and the Reception of Genesis 1–6 in Early America” (master’s thesis, Utah State University, 2019), 75–131.

^[19] See Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert; The World of the Jaredites; There Were Jaredites, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, vol. 5 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988), 31.

^[20] D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987).

^[21] D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998). All subsequent citations refer to this edition. 

^[22] Quinn, Early Mormonism, 191.

^[23] Quinn, 191.

^[24] Salvatore Cirillo, “Joseph Smith, Mormonism and Enochic Tradition” (master’s thesis, Durham University, 2010).

^[25] See Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen, In God’s Image and Likeness 2: Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel (Salt Lake City: Interpreter Foundation and Eborn Books, 2014), 45, n. 96; and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen, “Ancient Affinities within the LDS Book of Enoch, Part One,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 4 (2013): 10, n. 25; and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “Sorting Out the Sources in Scripture,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 9 (2014): 255–56, n. 156, and 259, n. 169; and Cheryl L. Bruno, “Congruence and Concatenation in Jewish Mystical Literature, American Freemasonry, and Mormon Enoch Writings,” Journal of Religion and Society 16 (2014): 4, n. 8.

^[26] Cirillo, “Joseph Smith, Mormonism and Enochic Tradition,” 73. According to Cirillo’s footnote, this quotation is found in Quinn, Early Mormonism, 191.

^[27] Quinn, Early Mormonism, 191.

^[28] Kyle R. Triplett, librarian in the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Book Division, email message to author, Oct. 4, 2017.

^[29] George F. Black, Ethiopica & Amharica: A List of Works in the New York Public Library (New York: New York Public Library, 1928). 

^[30] The National Union Catalog also claims that the library had a copy of the 1821 printing, but both the 1928 catalog and their current catalog do not support the notion they owned a copy in the twentieth century.

^[31] Jed L. Woodworth, “Extra-Biblical Enoch Texts in Early American Culture,” in Archive of Restoration Culture: Summer Fellows’ Papers, 1997–1999, edited by Richard L. Bushman (Provo: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History, 2000), 185–93.

^[32] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Vintage Books, 2005), 591, n. 51.

^[33] Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 138.

^[34] Bushman, 591, n. 52.

^[35] Ariel Hessayon, “Og King of Bashan, Enoch and the Books of Enoch: Extra-Canonical Texts and Interpretations of Genesis 6:1–4,” in Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England, edited by Ariel Hessayon and Nicholas Keene (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), 31.

^[36] Anthony Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, II: Historical Chronology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 544–45, 685–86.

^[37] Reed, Fallen Angels, 160–89.

^[38] Many of the dates associated with the documents cited in this section represent the specific year the edition was printed that I have access to. Some of the documents had been previously published or borrowed much of their information from prior sources.

^[39] Mr. Lewis, The History of the Angels, and their Gallantry with the Daughters of Men.

^[40] Robert Grosthead [Grosseteste], The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, The Sons of Jacob. Translated out of Greek into Latine, by Robert Grosthead, Sometimes Bishop of Lincoln: And out of his Copy into French and Dutch, and now English. The Three and Fortieth Edition (New York: Printed and Sold by William and Andrew Bradford, 1712).

^[41] Robert Grosthead [Grosseteste], Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs: The Sons of Jacob (Boston: Printed by T. Fleet and T. Crump, for Eleazer Phillips in Charlestown, 1716).

^[42] Johann Albert Fabricius, Codex pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti: Collectus castigatus, testimoniisque, censuris et animadversionibus illustratus à Johanne Alberto (Hamburg: C. Liebezeit, 1713).

^[43] William Whiston, A Collection of Authentick Records Belonging to the Old and New Testament. Translated into English (London: Printed for the Author, 1727). I have modernized the archaic long s (which looks like this in modern typeset: ſ ) in all quotations in this paper. Spelling and grammar are retained.

^[44] John Chapman, Remarks on a Book Intitled Christianity as old as the Creation, With Regard to Ecclesiastical Authority (Cambridge: Printed at the University Press for Cornelius Crownfield, 1732), 33. Names italicized in the original.

^[45] Abbé Banier, The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, Explain’d from History, Vol. I. Translated from the Original French (London: Printed for A. Millar, 1739).

^[46] Banier, Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, 120.

^[47] Banier, 121.

^[48] An Universal History, from the Earliest Account of Time. Compiled from Original Authors; with A General Index to the Whole, 65 vols. (London: Printed for T. Osborne, 1747–1766).

^[49] An Universal History, 1:36. See also pages 400–01 in the second volume.

^[50] J. Goar, ed., Georgii monachi quondam Syncelli chronographia et Nicephori patriarchae breviarium chronographicum, Corpus byzantinae historiae 15 (Roma, 1652).

^[51] John Jackson, Chronological Antiquities: or, the Antiquities and Chronology of the Most Ancient Kingdoms, from the Creation of the World, for the Space of Five thousand Years. In Three Volumes (London: Printed for the Author, 1752), 1:60.

^[52] Jackson, Chronological Antiquities, 60–61.

^[53] Jackson, 62, nn. 6–7.

^[54] Anonymous, “To the Proprietors of the Universal Magazine. Gentlemen, I here send you an Inquiry on a Question of Some Importance, Whether the Patriarchs, before the Flood, had delivered their Knowledge by Tradition? and, Whether Enoch wrote before that Period?” Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure 43 (1768): 252–54.

^[55] Jackson’s Oxford Journal, no. 1065, Sept. 25, 1883, 1.

^[56] Pennsylvania Gazette, no. 2345, Dec. 1, 1773, 2.

^[57] Maryland Gazette 29, no. 1474, Dec. 9, 1773, 1.

^[58] Virginia Gazette, no. 1168, Dec. 16, 1773, 1; and Rind’s Virginia Gazette, no. 397, Dec. 16, 1773, 3.

^[59] James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773, 5 vols. (Edinburgh: Printed by J. Ruthven, 1790).

^[60] Samuel Shaw, An Interesting Narrative of the Travels of James Bruce, Esq., into Abyssinia, to Discover the Source of the Nile. Abridged from the Original Work (New York: Reprinted for Berry and Rogers, 1790); and Samuel Shaw, An Interesting Narrative of the Travels of James Bruce, Esq., into Abyssinia, to Discover the Source of the Nile: Abridged from the Original Work, 2nd American ed. (Boston: Printed by Samuel Etheridge, 1798).

^[61] William Alexander, The History of Women, from the Earliest Antiquity, to the Present Time, Vol. I, 2 vols. (London: Printed for C. Dilly and R. Christopher, 1782).

^[62] Alexander, History of Women, 30.

^[63] Alexander, 31–32.

^[64] Alexander, 32.

^[65] Samuel Hoole, Aurelia; or, The Contest: An Heroi-Comic Poem; in Four Cantos (London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1783).

^[66] Hoole, Aurelia, v.

^[67] William Hayley, A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Essay on Old Maids. In Three Volumes, Vol. II (Dublin: Printed for Messrs. White, Byrne, Cash, and Moore, 1786).

^[68] Hayley, Essay on Old Maids, 14–15.

^[69] Hayley, 15.

^[70] Matthews, “Blake, Hayley and the History of Sexuality,” 92–93.

^[71] Encyclopædia Britannica; Or, A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature, The Third Edition, In Eighteen Volumes, Greatly Improved, Vol. VI (Edinburgh: Printed for A. Bell and C. MacFarquhar, 1797), 674.

^[72] Anonymous, “Concerning the Writings and Readings of Jude,” Monthly Magazine; or, British Register 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1801): 18–23.

^[73] Anonymous, “Writings and Readings of Jude,” 20–23.

^[74] Anonymous, “To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine,” Monthly Magazine; or, British Register 2, no. 2 (Mar. 1801): 132; and Anonymous, “Remarks on the Book of Enoch,” Monthly Magazine; or, British Register 2, no. 4 (May 1801): 300–01.

^[75] W., “Apocryphal Book of Enoch,” Orthodox Churchman’s Magazine and Review 10 (Jan. 1806): 24–28.

^[76] W., “Apocryphal Book of Enoch,” 25.

^[77] W., 68–71.

^[78] Asia, “On the Prophecy of Enoch,” in The Baptist Annual Register, for 1801 and 1802, Vol. 4, edited by John Rippon (London: Sold by Button and Conder, 1803), 845–50.

^[79] George Pretyman, An Introduction to the Study of the Bible (Philadelphia: Printed and sold by Kimber, Conrad, and Co., 1806), 333. Pretyman notes the belief that 1 Enoch was a forgery of the second century CE.

^[80] Abraham Rees, The Cyclopædia; Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, Vol. XIII, 41 vols. (Philadelphia: Published by Samuel F. Bradford, 1806–1820). See the entry under “Enoch.”

^[81] William Cave, A Complete History of the Lives, Acts, and Martyrdoms of the Holy Apostles, Vol. I (Philadelphia: Published by Solomon Wiatt, 1810), 333–40.

^[82] W. R., “The Prophecy of Enoch,” in The Baptist Magazine for 1811, Vol. III (London: Sold by W. Button, 1811), 485–90. 

^[83] Elijah Parish, Sacred Geography: Or, A Gazetteer of the Bible (Boston: Published by Samuel T. Armstrong, 1813); and The Archaeologist, “On the Book of Genesis,” Monthly Magazine; or, British Register 35, no. 3 (Apr. 1801): 214–17.

^[84] Charles Taylor, Calmet’s Great Dictionary of the Holy Bible, Historical, Critical, Geographical, and Etymological. Vol. I, 4 vols. (Charlestown, Mass.: Printed and Sold by Samuel Etheridge, 1812). The volume is not paginated.

^[85] Robert Mayo, A New System of Mythology (Philadelphia: Printed for the Author, 1815), 40–41.

^[86] Nathaniel Lardner, The Works of Nathaniel Lardner, D.D., in Five Volumes, Vol. I (London: Printed by T. Bensley, 1815), 458.

^[87] Lardner, Works of Nathaniel Larder, 551, 557.

^[88] See Thomas A. Wayment and Haley Wilson-Lemmon, “A Recovered Resource: The Use of Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary in Joseph Smith’s Bible Translation,” in Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, edited by Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Brian M. Hauglid (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2020).

^[89] Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, Vol. VI (New York: Published by Andrew Sargeant, 1819).

^[90] Clarke, Holy Bible, n.p. Emphasis in the original.

^[91] See Johann David Michaelis, Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. IV, 4th ed. (London: Printed for F. C. & J. Rivington, 1823), 393.

^[92] Clarke, Holy Bible, n.p.

^[93] Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pa.) 3, no. 12, Nov. 29, 1820, 1.

^[94] Maryland Gazette and Political Intelligencer 77, no. 80, July 26, 1821, 3.

^[95] John Overton, Inquiry into the Truth and Use of the Book of Enoch, as to its Prophecies, Visions, and Account of Fallen Angels (London: Printed for the Author, 1822).

^[96] Derby Mercury (England) 91, no. 4711, Oct. 23, 1822, 1; and Leeds Intelligencer and Yorkshire General Advertiser 70, no. 3565, Nov. 4, 1822, 4; and Thomas Moore, The Loves of the Angels: A Poem (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Orme, and Brown, 1823); and Thomas Moore, The Works of Thomas Moore, Esq., Complete in Six Volumes, Vol. VI (New York: Published by G. Smith, 1825), 6–102.

^[97] Thomas Tomkinson, A Practical Discourse, Upon the Epistle by Jude (Deal, UK: Printed for James May, & Joseph Gandar by J. B. Underdown, 1823).

^[98] “The First Chapter, and Part of the Second, of the Apocryphal Book of Enoch, Containing the Passage Cited by Jude,” The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine for the Year 1823 (London: Printed by T. Cordeux, 1823), 239–40.

^[99] Lord Byron, The Works of the Right Hon. Lord Byron. In Eight Volumes–Vol. V (Philadelphia: R. W. Pomeroy, 1825), 227–68.

^[100] Byron, Works of Lord Byron, 248, 251.

^[101] Y., “To the Elders of the Christian Observer,” The Christian Observer, Conducted by Members of the Established Church, for the Year 182[5], being the Twenty-[Fifth] Volume (New York: Reprinted and published by Samuel Whiting, 1825), 558–560. 

^[102] Thomas Hartwell Horne, An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, Volume I, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: Published by E. Littell, 1825). 

^[103] James Sabine, A Reply to “An Inquiry into the Scriptural Import of the Words Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna . . . by Walter Balfour” in a Series of Lectures (Boston: Printed by Ezra Lincoln, 1825).

^[104] Sabine, A Reply, 47, 53.

^[105] Sabine, 74.

^[106] Walter Balfour, A Reply to Mr. J. Sabine’s Lectures on the “Inquiry” into the Scriptural Import of the Words Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna (Boston: Howe & Norton, 1825), 91–93.

^[107] S. S. Schmucker, An Elementary Course of Biblical Theology, Translated from the Work of Professors Storr and Flatt, with Additions (Andover, Mass.: Printed and Published by Flagg & Gould, 1826), 125–26.

^[108] Archibald Alexander, The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained; or, the Bible Complete with the Apocrypha & Unwritten Traditions (New York: Princeton Press, Printed and Published by D. A. Borrenstein, 1826), 254–55, 261–62.

^[109] Anonymous, “Remarks on Ancient Chronology, &c.,” Classical Journal 34, no. 67 (1826): 103–13; and J. M. B., “Remarks on the Prometheus of Æschylus and the Book of Enoch,” Classical Journal 34, no. 68 (1826): 290–305. It is possible that the same author wrote both of these essays. The Classical Journal was available for purchase in the states from the early nineteenth century onward. See “Literary Rooms,” Evening Post (New York), June 8, 1815.

^[110] Anonymous, “Remarks on Ancient Chronology,” 108.

^[111] J. M. B., “Prometheus of Æschylus and the Book of Enoch,” 297–98.

^[112] National Gazette (Philadelphia) 7, no. 2043, July 7, 1827, 1.

^[113] J. M. Butt, The Genuineness of the Book of Enoch Investigated (London: Printed for L. B. Seeley and Son, 1827). 

^[114] Butt, Genuineness of the Book of Enoch Investigated, 3–4.

^[115] Butt, 12–14.

^[116] John Oxlee, Three Letters Humbly Submitted to the Consideration of the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Cashel, on the Recent Apocryphal Publications of his Grace (York, UK: Printed by Thomas Wilson and Sons, 1827).

^[117] Oxlee, Three Letters, 105–06.

^[118] Oxlee, 107.

^[119] Lord Bolingbroke, “Important Examination,” Correspondent (New York) 3, no. 11, Apr. 5, 1828, 165–67.

^[120] J. P. Dabney, Annotations on the New Testament: Compiled from the Best Critical Authorities, and Designed for Popular Use. Part II: The Epistles of Paul, James, Peter, John, and Jude (Cambridge, Mass.: Hilliard and Brown, 1829), 560; and Anonymous, “Hints on the Antiquity of Languages, and on the Origin of Alphabetic Writing,” The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and Art. January to June, 1829 (London: Henry Colburn, 1829), 433–36.

^[121] Warren Skinner, Essays on the Coming of Christ (Boston: Printed by G. W. Bazin, 1830), 110.

^[122] R. R. Madden, The Mussulman (Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, 1830), 32, 47.

^[123] Anonymous, “Review of Works on the Book of Enoch,” Christian Observer (London) 29, no. 331 (July 1829): 417–26.

^[124] National Gazette and Literary Register (Philadelphia) 10, no. 279, Feb. 4, 1830, 3; and Anonymous, “The Book of Enoch,” Religious Magazine or Spirit of the Foreign Theological Journals and Reviews (Philadelphia) 4, no. 26 (Feb. 1830): 394–400.

^[125] Anonymous, “Review of Works on the Book of Enoch,” Christian Observer (London) 29, no. 332 (Aug. 1829): 496–503. See also “Answers to Correspondents,” Christian Observer (London) 29, no. 332 (Aug. 1829): 647.

^[126] See Sandra M. Gustafson, Eloquence Is Power: Oratory and Performance in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), xvi, 140–70.